Saturday, October 29, 2011

White House Dismisses Popular Marijuana Petitions

Polls Show Marijuana Legalization More Popular Than President Obama
WASHINGTON, DC -- Late Friday night the White House issued a typical evasive rejection of the several marijuana legalization petitions that collected more signatures than any other issue on its "We the People" website. Even though recent polls show that more voters support marijuana legalization than approve of President Obama's job performance, the White House categorically dismissed the notion of reforming any laws, focusing its response on the possible harms of marijuana use instead of addressing the many harms of prohibition detailed in the petitions.

One of the popular petitions, submitted by retired Baltimore narcotics cop Neill Franklin, called on the Obama administration to simply stop interfering with states' efforts to set their own marijuana laws.

"It's maddening that the administration wants to continue failed prohibition polices that do nothing to reduce drug use and succeed only in funneling billions of dollars into the pockets of the cartels and gangs that control the illegal market," said Franklin, who serves as executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a group of cops, judges and prosecutors who support legalizing and regulating drugs. "If the president and his advisers think they're being politically savvy by shying away from much-needed change to our drug policies, they're wrong. The recent Gallup poll shows that more Americans support legalizing marijuana than support continuing prohibition, so the administration is clearly out of step with the people it claims to represent. President Obama needs to remember his campaign pledge not to waste scarce resources interfering with state marijuana laws and his earlier statement about the 'utter failure' of the drug war."

Five of the top 10 petitions on the "We the People" site are about some aspect of marijuana or drug policy reform. The eight marijuana petitions that the White House's Friday rejection was intended to address have collectively garnered more than 150,00 signatures.

This isn't the first time that marijuana policy reform has proven popular in online forums hosted by the White House. A question from LEAP member and former sheriff's deputy MacKenzie Allen got the most votes in a White House YouTube forum this January. Marijuana questions also dominated the White House's "Open for Questions" online town hall in March 2009 and the Obama transition team's Change.gov website in late 2008. Each time, the administration has issued terse rejections that contradict Obama's 2004 statement that "we need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws."

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) represents police, prosecutors, judges, FBI/DEA agents and others who want to legalize and regulate drugs after fighting on the front lines of the war on drugs and learning firsthand that prohibition only serves to worsen addiction and violence. More info at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com.

12 comments:

It's not at all surprising that the wantonly hypocritical, autocratic and hopelessly expedient Obama administration would choose to expand the drug war by continuing unconstitutional prohibition laws. This administration wouldn't do anything to diminish ANY aspect of Federal Power, solely due to the lust to not only retain such powers, but expand them to gratify their paternalistic egos. "Fast and Furious" Holder has said that the Constitution is dated and the double standards continue to abound. If this administration had its way, it would abolish the Constitution completely and establish autocratic royal prerogative that would surpass the levels of autocracy in Czarist Russian. Obama wants personal power over every miniscule aspect of the lives of citizens. It is continually appalling but not the least bit surprising. I better refrain from making further comments for fear of being executed without trial, as recent events have shown us with Anwar al-Awlaki or Qaddafi. It matters not whether one is a U.S. citizen or an unarmed head of state who begged for his life. We must practice jury nullification to overturn these draconian drug laws that were solely promulgated due to racism at the expense of the Constitutional rights of ALL!

In reply to a question to Thomas Jefferson which asked "how can we ensure that only good men are elected to high office?" Jefferson's reply anticipated bad men: "In questions of power...let no more be heard of confidence inman, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of theConstitution." --Thomas Jefferson: Kentucky Resolutions, 1798.

Corporate greed and individual bigotry have accelerated us towards a situation where all the usual peaceful and democratic methods needed to reverse the acute damage done by prohibition no longer function as envisaged by the Founding Fathers of our once great and free nation. Such a political impasse coupled with great economic tribulation is precisely that which throughout history has invariably ignited violent revolution.

In order to avert what will surely be a far more violent situation than we are all presently experiencing and to restore our Republic to a system of the people by the people for the people, there appears to be just one last avenue left to us - Jury Nullification.

Obama's reply, via the ONDCP was to be expected. It's a popular political ploy called "stonewalling". The Pres., via his drug czar, said that cannabis is prohibited because it is a source of respiratory ailments and causes cognitive impairment... like the air we breath and the liquor we consume doesn't? This is President Obama's response to the will of the People... arrest anyone caught with cannabis - and for god's sake, call it marijuana, not cannabis. Or is that marihuana? No difference...

10 years in prison is a just penalty for the crime. What crime? Oh yeah, respiratory illness and cognitive impairment.

Drink your beers Mr. President. You won't get reelected! You did not deliver on your promise for change, nor adherence to science. You mention research by NIDA, but according to law, schedule one drugs cannot be subject to research that may seek to find beneficial uses. One sided science is not science, it's alchemy and deceit.

well said bobkat...i just dont understand why marijuana is illegal...seriously.so lets say it does cause respiratory illness...look at cigarettes...cigarette packs state that smoking may cause lung disease, heart disease, emphysema...CANCER.And what about alcohol...alcohol causes liver failure and kidney failure...and on alcohol you are way more impaired than being on marijuana.

so...try again...i sincerely do not understand why marijuana in any form is illegal.

$$ and E=MCsquared... think black and white, night and day... a night black, a day pure white. $$ is the symbol. E=MCsquared is the logic born of such vision. It is vision that lacks grays, or colors. Vision that is blinder than blind. Either/Or...

In plain English, Alcohol, Tobacco AND Cannabis can't work. That's three. In the minds of our President and Congress is a black and white, either/or mentality. There is no in between, no outside the box, no compromise, no communication.

5 petitions making the top 10, over 750,000 signatures total, and all President Obama can say is it's like the weather, the air is bad, cognitive impairment can be the result; or rather, is the result. So we, will continue, to treat "drugs" in their current form, enforcing "drug laws" and putting people in prison, subjecting them to humiliating and often aggressive law enforcement routines, separate children from parents, place limits on careers, and create a second class citizen in the USA.

With the blessing of the president, Washington will now start shutting down state legal marijuana dispensaries. If they haven't started, expect the DEA raids to start soon. Also, if you own a medical marijuana card, the DEA could come knocking on your door.

I just started a petition on the White House petitions site, We the People. It is a petition to protest how the white house ignored the "We the People" petitions for marijuana law reform. Too many go to jail for simple possession. It is time to end this prohibition! Will you sign it? http://wh.gov/b2x

Going beyond the real issue and taking a moment to focus on the small victories, i'd point out the immense cooperation&respect that the supporters of cannabis display for one another both inwardly&outwardly. Let us free ourselves from the imaginary restraints set forth by an imaginary set of rules. Cannabis will(if not already has) win the "war on drugs" for the simple fact that it is a living species. Like we've learned with the Jews, Let My People Go.